The Fray Theory: Resonance (4 page)

One
tormented step at
a time, the space between Dylan and Neve stretches. And although he can
practically feel her pain he can’t rip his gaze from his target up ahead—from a
gentleman in a gray suit and charcoal fedora, carrying a dark, vintage briefcase.

It’s him
… Dylan’s pace accelerates.
Has to be
.
And then he finds himself running with little regard to his surroundings. The
students he zooms past blur into swatches of color, but his focus never wavers.
At full speed, he segues off the sidewalk and cuts through traffic with an absurd
level of confidence, ignoring the upheaval of loud honks and angry shouts from
drivers.

With his eyes
glued to his target, Dylan dashes up the green landscape towards UBC’s pharmaceutical
building: a modern monstrosity composed of darkly-tinted glass cubes.

But his chase
comes to a staggering stop when he notices a security guard manning the entrance.

The man in gray
swipes his key-card, exchanges a terse nod with the guard, and makes his way
into the building.

Dylan retracts a
bit, clenching his jaw. Even if his student ID hadn’t expired, it’s still highly
unlikely it would grant him access into this particular building.

With his window
of opportunity fast coming to a close, he retrieves his phone from his back pocket
and pulls up his Contact List.

And he finds
himself hesitating. It
has
been three years of nearly zero communication
between them.

But what if this
is a sign? What better excuse than a spontaneous run-in for Dylan to reach out?

Just do it
, he banishes his doubts and dials ‘Alex’.

He slaps the
phone to his ear and flings his focus back onto the man in gray.

Through tinted windows,
Dylan watches him stop, pass his briefcase to his left hand, and pull out his
phone from his jacket’s pocket.

A wave of
optimism brightens Dylan’s expression. But his smile melts off his lips when
Alex puts his phone back into his pocket and resumes his walk.

One… two… three… Alex’s
steps down the stairs synchronize with Dylan’s heartbeat until he vanishes from
sight entirely.

σ

Dylan enters his apartment like a soldier returning home from battle. He
applies the door’s bolt-locks, takes a step back, and then slams his palm against
the cold, hard steel. The door quivers in its frame, its wavering groan awakening
the stale air.

Chasing after
Alex was stupid. Today wasn’t about him. It was about making things right with
Neve, and now he might never get another opportunity.

Feeling
lightheaded from his jetlag, he walks wide of his luggage crowding the entry
and makes his way into the living space. Standing there, he finds himself
taking in the subtleties he was forced to entrust to memory. Like the oaky
smell of his furniture. Or the muffled noise of street traffic from down below.
And especially, how shadows dance along the hardwood as the night chases the
sun across the sky.

With a somber
smile, he extends his hand into a golden sheet of sunlight, soaking up the remnants
of the day.

Warmth: the most
comforting of all comforts. And all too soon, it’s gone.

Dylan withdraws
from the living space and
heads
towards his bedroom.
And
although the last thing he wants to do is sleep, he’s nearly passing out.

He takes off his jacket
and throws it onto his bed, but its weight drags it down onto the floor.

Swooping down to
pick it up, he detects a subtle pattern at the foot of the bed. He crouches
down for a better look and realizes he’s looking at shoeprints stamped onto an otherwise
undisturbed film of dust.

And they seem
fresh.

Dylan’s eyes dart
about his room. Nothing seems tossed or missing, at least as far as he can tell.
Could these prints belong to his father? That would make sense. Someone would
have had to check up on the place in Dylan’s absence.

So why can’t he shake
the eerie vibe crawling up his back?

And his heart
drops the instant he realizes what’s wrong with this picture: the prints are in
an isolated cluster. No trail leads to,
or
stems from them.

Thoroughly
alarmed at this point, Dylan pulls his switchblade from his ankle sheath, and
rises.

It’s going to be fine.
He has trained for this sort of thing. All he has to do is keep his fear at
bay—make sure it doesn’t compromise his judgment.

Wielding his
blade, he makes his way through the apartment, inspecting it for disturbances
that could lead him to the intruder.

His search quickly
yields more shoeprints in the ensuite bathroom, pantry, laundry, and the
kitchen. In fact, there is a cluster of prints in practically every isolated
section of his home.

By the time Dylan
returns to the living space, he’s more or less confident the intruder has already
left.

After scanning
his vicinity once more, he drops down onto his white couch, sending a flurry of
dust motes into a stray shaft of light.

And then all he
can think about is
her
, and how she’d be diving for her camera to
capture this golden ribbon draping across the room.

With the thought
of Neve, his place is set ablaze with vivid color. And then she is everywhere, like
a tuxedo kitten curled up in every corner of his heart. Leaning against the
windowsill, snapping a photo of a raspberry sunset. Down on all fours with her
hair up in a messy bun, wiping the red wine she spilled tripping over nothing.
Lying on the couch across him with tears in her eyes, begging him to stop
making her laugh so she can get a few minutes of shuteye.

And a deep ache in
his chest rips through the rosy veil, and he is back in the gray prison of his
doubts.

It frightens him to
think that the memories he has of her, may be all he ever will…

σ

The
darkness is all-encompassing, and Dylan has no idea where he is. If the breeze
tugging at his clothes and the mild scent of pine trees are any indication, however,
he is somewhere outside, facing the northern mountains.

From far below, he can hear the
splashing of waves onto rocks. And just then, he becomes aware of the rough,
metallic texture beneath his bare feet.

A weak source of light beckons
his attention from behind. He looks over his shoulder to find the glimmering
towers of downtown wedged between the dark soil and the mulberry sky.

In light of his vantage point,
he realizes there is only one place he could be standing: up on the southern
apex of Lions Gate Bridge.

With this revelation, the teal
titan reveals itself beneath him.

But something feels off.

The bridge seems weathered. And
the white lights that make it resemble a wide ‘M’ from far in the distance are
snuffed.

With no cars driving on the
bridge deck, it feels like looking down at a desolate future.

A
swatch of black grabs
Dylan’s attention, and he looks up to find a young man mirroring him on the
northern apex of the bridge.

He is ghostly-pale, and cloaked in a black trench-coat. His
dark, shoulder-length hair is swaying in the wind, and although his mouth is
concealed beneath the flap of his collar, his tiger-wild eyes are fashioning a
sinister smile.

Despite his calm exterior, his presence feels menacing.

Lethal.

Dylan’s heart starts to pound madly inside his ribcage, like
a wild animal trying to break free. He can feel the drumming in his temple,
fingertips, even the balls of his feet.

Because he knows this man.

And he knows exactly what comes next.

“HELP!” Dylan shouts, but little more than a gasp escapes
him. He tries to move, but fear has pinned him in place.

A roaring rumble beckons his gaze up to the clouds. There is
a distant crackling sound, and then he’s being showered with glistening chunks
of hail.

The soft patter becomes progressively more aggressive until
it starts to puncture his flesh. And there is nothing he can do but to stand
still and tolerate the pain.

And so he does, until riddled with icy bullets and drenched
in blood, his legs give way, and he plummets down towards an endless abyss.

Dylan kicks awake
on his couch, shaking from the bone-splitting pain that followed him back to
reality.

Though his flesh
isn’t ruptured, he can’t seem to rid himself of the sense-memory of bullets
lodged in his skin. So he recoils in utter misery, waiting for the pain to
subside… to knock him out… to kill him.

He’d settle for
anything at this point.

‘
All pain is a
state of mind
.’

With his switchblade
firmly gripped, he struggles to his feet, straightens his back, and tries to
will the pain into submission.

But all too soon,
a distant crackling sound sets his teeth on edge, and he turns towards the
window and stares with contempt as hail showers from the coral sky.

The icy specks
sparkle in the sun’s golden gleam, taunting him with their timely arrival.

Through the
arrhythmic melody of the downpour, Dylan detects a creaking sound. And not a
moment later he has spun around, his arm extended along the trajectory of his
aim.

Across him, on
the opposite end of the apartment, his blade is lodged between the eyes of the
portrait Neve painted of him over three years ago.

He approaches with
caution, and directly beneath the painting, discovers a small cluster of shoeprints
identical to the ones he found earlier—exactly where his portrait’s feet would
be, if it had a body.

And Dylan doesn’t
know whether he missed these prints the first time around, or whether the
intruder he’d thought was long gone is still in the apartment.

Skeptical of his
own shadow, he slowly reaches up and yanks his blade from his portrait.

He turns his back
to the wall.

And waits…

It
’s been roughly an hour
since Dylan left her behind. An hour consisting of an absentminded drive,
followed by sitting in her parked car and reliving the encounter in her head.
Though she
feels like she’s
got every right to be furious, she can’t seem to quite get there.

It
has
been years, and Dylan may very well have changed. But the boy she used to know did
not have a single strand of selfishness in him.

So why would he
take off like that? Did he just not want to deal with her? Did she push him
away?

Neve exhales a
frustrated sigh and gets out of her car. Still weighed down by melancholy, she
feeds the meter, and then walks to the intersection.

Beyond the
threshold lies Gastown: Vancouver’s historic district, and one of Neve’s favorite
places to pass the time. Quirky cafés, avant-garde galleries, and souvenir
shops enliven rows of brick and mortar buildings, and the sinewy trees that run
along the cobblestone road are adorned in champagne lights, year-round.

Gastown’s magic
stems from authenticity. History. And not once has it failed to ground Neve in
an ever-changing world dominated by steel and glass.

As the pedestrian
light is illuminated, Neve steps off the pavement and ventures into the heart
of the district.

The coral sky is slowly
yielding to cooler hues, so she waits with great anticipation for the moment
the street’s Victorian lamps ignite.

Instead, something
tiny bounces off her shoulder.

She tries to see
what it was and where it landed, but her curiosity is quenched as hail starts
to shower from the sky.

Awe and laughter saturate
the air as people seek refuge under awnings. Grinning Patio-dwellers cover
their meals with whatever’s within reach, and little children cup their paws as
the tiny chunks of ice patter kisses on their chubby cheeks.

And then, as
though orchestrated by magic itself, the rows of street lamps are kindled, making
it seem like glistening diamonds are pouring from the sky.

The world somehow
feels much bigger than it did a minute ago.

What a lovely
intermission to life.

Arriving at her
destination, Neve sneaks a glance into the dimly-lit gallery. Squinting, she brackets
her eyes with her hands in order to block out the glare from street lamps and headlights.

WHAT
!?

Bolting towards
the entry, she winds up slipping on a chunk of ice. She grabs the door handle just
in time, and dangles from it like a banana peel.

Sexy
.

She pulls herself up and
escapes into the gallery.

Oh, no no no,
her eyes feverishly scan the vicinity. The place
looks like a hurricane aftermath. Tools and supplies are splayed haphazardly, and
there’s a thick layer of sawdust on everything.

A loud CLINK from the back
space startles her. It sounded like someone just dropped a tool.

Ready to unleash hell,
Neve marches towards the source of the noise, ducks under a hanging sheet of semi-transparent
plastic, and enters the significantly dimmer staging area.

There is a young man up on
the ladder before her, wearing a white tank-top and washed-out jeans. And he’s
about to hammer a nail into a wooden beam.

Neve looks to the light
switch on the wall next to her, shakes her head microscopically, and flicks it
on.

A 400-watt bulb turns on an
inch from the young carpenter’s head. Startled by it, he loses his footing and
falls off the ladder onto his back.

“Oh my God!” Neve dives to
his aid. “I’m so sorry! Are you okay!?”

Groaning, “the hell’s your
problem!?” he rolls onto his side and starts rubbing his back.

“I am so,
so
sorry!
Your head was blocking it,” she indicates the light bulb.

“Oh—so it’s
my
fault now?” he blows his hair off his face and struggles to his feet.

“Yes. Yes it is,” she
jokes to lighten the mood, but instead of taking the bait, the young man walks
back out into the main space.

Okay
.
I deserved that
.

Neve follows him out of
the staging area, bracing herself to grovel. But it’s proving harder and harder
as time drags on, especially with his back to her.

Waiting for a window of
opportunity, she watches him comb through his wavy hair with his fingers, his
honey roots contrasting the platinum locks they fade into. With his bare
forearm, he wipes the sweat from his temple, and then starts to brush off the
sawdust clinging to the back of his jeans.

He finally turns to face
her, and the moment their eyes meet, she’s thirteen again. His eyes are like
the clear blues of the Maldives, and as deep as Mariana Trench.

He’s the kind of guy who
walks into a room, and everyone takes notice. The kind who has a never-ending string
of girls pining after him.

But much to her surprise,
he is reciprocating her shameless stare. She can’t quite tell what’s behind it,
but it doesn’t feel flirtatious. If anything, it’s making her a bit nervous.

“So, how much longer do
you think it’ll be?”

He continues to stare as
if he didn’t even hear her question.

“A rough estimate would be
fine,” Neve nudges.

“What’s your name?” he squints.

“Oh—” she extends her hand.
“I’m Neve.”

And a faint, knowing smile
softens his expression. But instead of taking Neve’s hand, he pulls an elastic band
from his wrist, and starts to tie his hair back into a half-pony.

Neve retracts her hand as
he walks away from her again. She’d be offended, but with his hair no longer
framing his face, he’s starting to look really familiar.

“I’m sorry, do I know
you?” she asks.

“You seriously need to
expand your vocabulary,” he drags a block of timber onto the table, and slides
it to the middle.

Neve’s eyes dart to the
corner of the room as she tries to figure out what the hell he’s talking about.

“
Or
you could stop
apologizing every five seconds. Both’ll do.”

Or I could switch to
bitch-mode and start raining sass on your ass
.

She crosses her arms.
“What happened to the guy that was taking off the shelves a few days ago?”

“Filling in for him,” he measures
the timber and makes a small mark with his pencil.

Neve looks about, trying
to gauge the progress.

It looks like the previous
exhibition has been fully taken down, so that’s good. But none of the dozens of
easels she needs for her paintings seem to have been assembled yet.

“Um—how much longer is it
going to be, again?”

“Couldn’t tell ya.”

“Cause I’m opening tomorrow
evening and—”

“Yeah, not going to happen,”
he laughs.

Neve’s heart drops. “Why
not?”

“Time. Plain and simple.”

Neve gawks at the block of
wood he’s measuring. Is
that
what the easels are to be made of!? “No.
No
.
I gave you guys a
week
. I even paid extra to make sure everything would
be done on time.”

“Listen, Bev—”

“Neve.”

“Whatever,” he throws his
pencil down. “I’ve been working fourteen-hour days for the past five weeks, and
if I didn’t need the money, there’s no way in hell I’d be standing here, taking
crap from
you
. So kindly hop off my ass, and let me do my job, okay?”

He turns his attention
back to the timber.

Neve’s eyes narrow.
There’s just something about his mini-tantrum that makes her certain she knows
him from somewhere.

“Do you have a brother by
any chance?” she asks. “Named Romer?”

He sighs dispassionately. “You’re
looking at him.”

Neve’s brows shoot up.

Although his hair is
considerably longer than she remembers, it’s how much older he now looks that
made him so difficult to recognize. Compared to the obnoxious boy she remembers,
he seems so…
worn
.

“What?” he looks at her
sideways.

“God—you just look so…
different
,”
Neve indicates his hair. “Do you remember me? I’m Dylan’s—um…”
Dylan’s what?
Ex-girlfriend?
Abandonee?
“We’ve met a bunch of times, actually. Really
brief, though.”

Romer stares at her with
as much emotion as you would register on a wall.

“Okay, how about that Halloween
party four years ago? I was the white jellyfish with LED lights in my umbrella..?
You said I should’ve won first prize..?”

“Wow. Way to cling onto a
compliment four years after the fact,” he bends down to grab his saw from under
the table.

It takes a moment for Neve
to register the blow. “I’m not clinging to anything.”

“
Ohokay
,” he mocks.

“I’m just reminding you of
what
you
said. It’s kind of how memory works.”

“Actually, memory is
selective.”

“What are you even saying?”
she grimaces.

Visibly fed up, he rests the
saw down on the table and starts to rub his temples. “You want me to finish in
time, or not?”

“Okay, I’m sorry—do you
have a problem with me or something?”

“Course not. I’m a
masochist,” he rubs his back.

“I turned the light on to
help
you,” she says as he resumes his work. “Who hammers in the dark?”

“Someone who needs to
hammer a nail two inches below the bulb, sugar.”

Oh.

“Look, I’m sorry. I’ve
already apologized multiple times, as you so graciously pointed out. Can you at
least not be a prick about it?”

Romer says nothing. He
doesn’t even look up.

Feeling exposed and
vulnerable, Neve wraps her cardigan around her frame.

This is really bad. Things
are already way behind schedule without him dragging his feet.

If she wants out of this
mess, she’s going to have to swallow her pride. “Is there anything I can do to
help things along? I can grab you a cup of coffee.”

Romer looks up at her with
crinkled brows, and yet there’s a ghost of a smile on his lips.

He seems…
offended
?

“What, are you allergic to
coffee, or something?”

“You think I don’t know he
put you up to this?” He holds Neve’s gaze for a moment, and then turns his
attention back to the task at hand.

His wide eyes are
unblinking as he saws through the timber, and his strokes become more and more aggressive
until the end-piece falls to the floor.

“Okay,
what
are you
talking about?” Neve asks.

“Look—just… don’t,” he frowns.
“I know you guys had a thing, but don’t sink to his level.”

With that, a wave of relief
washes over Neve, and she suspects that Romer’s abrasiveness may actually have
nothing to do with her.

She makes her way around the
table and stands in front of him, but once again, he does not look up.

“Were you at UBC today?” she
asks.

“Nope.”

“Yeah you were,” she nods.
“That’s why he left.”

“How about we
don’t
play the pronoun game?”

Neve puts her hands on her
hips. “Dylan.”

Romer’s pencil hovers over
the timber as though he’s forgotten what he was just about to do.

“He was at UBC?” he asks. “Today?”

“Yeah..?”

After a short lull, Romer licks
his lips and goes to resume his work. But he seems to have lost his place
entirely, so he slides his ruler back and measures the timber again.

Neve turns her head slightly
with her gaze glued to him. But before she can ask what the big deal is, he
drops his pencil down and leans onto the edge of the table.

“When was this?”